Food for Thought with Alex Bielak -What’s on the Menu?

What’s on the Menu?

People think it would be nice to go back in time sometimes, perhaps in pursuit of a more genteel era, where the food was slower, if not necessarily more sustainable. Well now one can. Literally.

The New York Public Library has a “What’s on the Menu” site where over 17,000 (and counting) historic menus are archived. It’s well worth a few minutes to scan, and visitors to the site can even take on some reviewing functions if they’d like to contribute to the ongoing transcription process.

It’s fascinating to see what patrons at clubs like the Bohemian, Banker’s, Chemist’s, Cotillion, Gridiron or Papyrus clubs, among many others, were partaking of in the late 1800s, or having for breakfast on the high seas as the SS America steamed on and 1953 drew to a close. For instance diners at the Boston-based Papyrus Club tackled an imposing repast that included Fried Soft Shell Crabs, Fillet of Beef, and Loin of Spring lamb. Refreshed by “Roman Punch” they went on to
devour upland plover (with a lettuce salad), followed by Roquefort and Stilton and ice cream and fruit!

And did I mention they began with little neck clams and clear green turtle soup?

Contrast those to modern-day offerings such as the 2006 menu for Thomas Keller’s Per Se: The oddly formal language would have been familiar back when, even if I suspect the actual presentations would have seemed as if from Mars! Or peruse the more mass-market seafood chain menu at Legal Sea Foods from 1998. Littleneck clams were featured on both the 1894 Papyrus Club menu and that at Legal, but it would be unthinkable to now find the green turtle soup on the menu of a restaurant “committed to the protection and sustainable management of marine resources”.

This has happened for a variety of reasons ranging from arguments like those for sustainable fisheries, the waning of fads, through to the evolution and globalization of cuisine. The NY library project is just another example of how information technology and the internet are increasingly being used to look at things in new ways. The site allows you to track the appearance of an item through to its disappearance: Clear Green Turtle for instance appeared first on a menu in the collection in 1893 and was last featured in 1937.

Along similar lines, Neil Irwin wrote a wonderful, and somewhat tongue in cheek piece in the New York Times recently, analysing food terminology to track the waxing and waning of trends. In “Special Sauce for Measuring Food Trends: The Fried Calamari Index” he notes “The term “fried calamari” did not appear in the pages of The New York Times until 1975, according to our nifty Times Chronicle tool, and didn’t show up frequently until the 1980s.”

Irwin then went on to note it only took 16 years for calamari to become mainstream, something he deemed “one Standard Calamari Unit”. Now I think about it, the dish does seem to be offered on just about every chain menu, and is no longer considered “gross” by 6 year olds. NYT Articles where the term “fried calamari” was used peaked in 1996 and dropped significantly by last year. Could it be that there is simply nothing more to say about this ubiquitous dish?

Overall, I found the piece fascinating. Quiche came and went; Hummus came on strong and waned recently; Quinoa is the current rage, leading pork belly by a snout. Leafing them in the dust however is kale!

Yes, you read that right, kale. Get yourselves to a local market now and buy a bunch to see what the fuss is about. (Full disclosure, I did actually do this and made a couple of palatable dishes.)

Readers will recall Food for Though recently featured a photo taken by a friend during dinner at NOMA, one of the world’s top-rated eateries. I said it featured “barbequed cucumbers adorned with liquid nitrogen-frozen ants (and tiny flowers?)”.

I wonder how many Standard Calamari Units it will take before the term “barbequed cucumbers,” let alone “liquid nitrogen-frozen ants,” make it to the mainstream and features regularly on the pages of the NYT?

For more pictures, click here. 

To see all past columns please see (and “like”) the Food for Thought Archives

Alex (Alex can be reached at fft@thehamiltonian.info or on twitter @AlexBielak)